Social Security News 04-24-12

SSW/SSSC mention **

Business Week (NAT)

Aging workforce strains Social Security, Medicare

04-23-12

Stephen Ohlemacher

"No one is saying you don't have to maintain it," said Eric Kingson, co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign and a professor of social work at Syracuse University. "What I worry about is reducing he benefit structure or radically changing the system."

Social Security will exhaust its trust fund in 2033 -- three years earlier than previous projections, the program's trustees announced Monday. Ray Suarez, Nancy Altman of Social Security Works and the Heritage Foundation's David John discuss its long-term health amid a retiring baby boomer population and a weakened economy.

“The most important take-aways from the 2012 Trustees Report will be that Social Security has a large and growing surplus,” according to a commentary from Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, co-director of Social Security Works, an advocacy group leading up to the trustees report. “With modest legislated increases in revenue, it will continue to pay those benefits for the next century and beyond.”

Generally these plans call not only for closing loopholes that disproportionately benefit the rich, like the home mortgage interest deduction, but also for cutting essential government benefits for the middle class, like Social Security and Medicare. Alan Simpson famously mocked Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million tits.”

Two other defenders of Social Security, Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, co-directors of Social Security Works, would argue with Ohlemacher's take on the the fund. The most important points to take away from the 2012 Trustees Report, they write, will be this: Social Security "has a large and growing surplus; that without any Congressional action, Social Security will continue to pay benefits to America’s eligible working families for decades; and that with modest legislated increases in revenue, it will continue to pay those benefits for the next century and beyond."

Social Security is the most successful program in our nation's history. It is not in crisis. With sensible steps, like those in my legislation, we can make the program stronger and ensure greater financial security in retirement for generations to come.

Social Security fund will run out three years earlier than earlier projections due to boomer retirements, weak economy. If Social Security fund runs out, retirees will get 75 percent of promised benefits.

High energy prices and an economy that has been slow to rebound are worsening Social Security’s finances, shortening the life of the trust funds that support program by three years, the government said Monday.

The Not-So-Secret Weapon of the Campaign to Destroy Social Security: Cynicism

04-24-12

Peter Dorman

Now that you’ve done your homework, here is my take. For the past thirty years we have seen repeated campaigns to eviscerate Social Security—to privatize it, siphon off its finances, drain it of its essential social insurance character

Social Security would go into the red in 2033 — three years earlier than previously projected — and Medicare by 2024 if trends continue, the federal programs' trustees report. The forecasts add urgency to calls on Washington to tackle the problem as baby boomers begin retiring.

Joining a chorus of Catholic bishops, theologians, priests, and social justice leaders, nearly 90 Georgetown University faculty and administrators have called Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) to task for his misuse of Catholic social teaching in defending his budget, which hurts the poor. The group sent a letter to Rep. Ryan in advance of his appearance on the Catholic campus on Thursday morning to give the Whittington Lecture. In their letter to Ryan, the scholars make clear they are not objecting to his speaking on campus, but rather his recent comments defending his budget on Christian grounds. “Our problem with Representative Ryan is that he claims his budget is based on Catholic social teaching,” said Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, one of the organizers of the letter.

President Barack Obama Tuesday began a three-state White House message effort appealing to a key group he needs for his re-election campaign: Reduced loan interest for college students. Starting in North Carolina — he’ll then continue the swing-state tour through Colorado and Iowa — he said interest rates on some 7.4 million student...

Not always, mind you -- social media will, and should, continue to play an important role in our political discourse. But the trend has grown so quickly; I don't know that anyone has really stopped to consider the implications of moment-by-moment, real-time transparency.

In The Wall Street Journal, economists Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez write that we're not close to the top of the Laffer Curve, and raising tax rates is part of a sensible deficit reduction strategy.